But they met together afterwards to talk about an agreement to jointly develop new operating system software so that their countries could avert a monopoly by Microsoft Corporation on developing technologies.

The cooperative concept was prepared by Japan several months ago, said Shiota, and the system will be based on Linux as well as other open source software.

Takeo Hiranuma, Japanese Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry confirmed at an earlier press conference a recent report that the three countries would discuss plans to develop software for the next generation of “smart” devices.

Marked reduction in the minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) of ß-lactams in methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus produced by epicatechin gallate, an ingredient of green tea (Camellia sinensis).

A year later, the Japanese Hill-and-Pond Garden was completed by eminent landscape architect TakeoShiota.

TakeoShiota, the landscape architect, was motivated by an ambition to create “a garden more beautiful than all others in the world.” This garden’s simplicity and “harmonious asymmetry” was created around a lake shaped like the Chinese letter meaning “heart,” the center of meditative calm.

The Japanese Garden also complements a collection of Japanese Flowering Cherry trees with over forty varieties which in its diversity is the largest in the western world.

Another revitalizing place to venture in the Brooklyn Botanic Garden is the Japanese Hill-and-Pond Garden, a small-scale landscape featuring cherry trees and other flora set amid classical elements of Japanese environmental design, including traditional Japanese torii gates, lanterns, shrines, and bridges.

It was designed by the Japanese landscape architect TakeoShiota in 1914 as a “mirror of nature” and was recently restored to its original glory.

The Queens Botanical Garden offers plantings native to various Asian environs as well as the austere tranquility of its Cherry Circle landscape installation.

The Children’s Garden, an educational center designed to teach children about plant life, opened in 1914.

TakeoShiota designed the Japanese Hill-and-Pond Garden in 1915 with a $13,000 gift from Arthur T. White, one of the gardens prominent benefactors who contributed $25,000 to the City’s matching fund to develop the Brooklyn Botanic in 1909.

The Japanese Garden’s pond is set in one of the pools formed by the Wisconsin Iceberg.

On the shelf next to the dictionary were a couple of photographs: the same one of the baby Takeo that Mari had sent to Mas, and a large one of Mari with her pale and scraggly husband, Lloyd, standing on some cement stairs leading to an official government building.

Mas had not seen Lloyd for years, and that absence hadn't done Lloyd any good.